Tuesday August 8, 2006
Published on Guardian Unlimited
THE BEACH is perfect, the sunset just right, the drinks perfectly cooled and then a small hand taps at your side. Beggars, and in particular child beggars, are a sad reality of any travel outside the first world.
They immediately present an ethical dilemma: what is the best way to help them? Do you opt for the give nothing strategy, or do you give a little - or even a lot?
Francesca Leadlay, information officer at UK charity Tourism Concern, is in the don't-give camp: "Tourism Concern believes that giving to children encourages begging," she says. "'One school pen' is the chorus of children in many developing countries where tourists have dished out pens like trinkets."
But David Else, a writer for guidebook publisher Lonely Planet and a specialist in Africa, thinks differently. "Giving to beggars is a matter of choice," he says, picking his words carefully, "and it needs to be a responsible choice."
He believes that visitors should decide whether to give based on local factors. "In many developing countries begging and giving is part of the local culture," he points out. "And where it is, I think it's OK to give money and I think tourists should give money." His advice is to watch the locals: "If people are giving loose change, there's your answer."
However, he adds, "When it's patently not part of the local culture - kids on the beach in Kenya, Goa or Cambodia - then you need to question it. Are they begging because the tourists are there?
He also warns that the money may not be going straight into the child's pocket. "There are Fagin-type characters who control the children, or often it's the parents who send them out to beg," he says.
Third world ways
Tourism Concern suggests there are other ways you can make a difference without negotiating the murky area of giving to child beggars. "You can make a positive difference as a tourist and avoid guilt trips by taking simple steps such as staying in locally-owned accommodation, buying locally and paying a fair price," says Leadlay.
Else agrees: "When you don't want to give directly you have two choices. Give to a local charity, or, if you can't do that, give to a charity at home."
Carl Wootten did exactly that. The 23-year-old is a music technology student at Bath University who spent a gap year in 2002 teaching Aids awareness at a secondary school in Tanzania. When he came home, he tried to find something that could help people in similar situations to those he had met.
"After looking around, I found Plan, which helps children directly. I started sponsoring 12-year-old Shetrick in Kenya, which is not that far from Tanzania."
According to the child sponsorship information website www.dontbuyicecream.com, there are 28 charities in the UK that are involved in directly sponsoring children overseas. All of them have similar procedures which allow UK supporters to sponsor a child in the developing world for £10-£25 a month and, in return, receive regular updates on the child's progress - as well as the feeling of being directly involved.
The biggest of the charities involved is Plan UK, which was founded in 1937 by journalist John Langdon Davies after he worked as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War. His slogan at the time was that a British "foster parent" could support a child refugee in Spain on one shilling a day.
Now Plan International operates the biggest scheme in the world, sponsoring over 1 million children worldwide. "We have 119,000 sponsors in the UK," says press officer Sandra Brobbey. "We have one woman who sponsors 12 children."
Bread tape
So how does it work in practice? With Plan the monthly commitment is £12. When you first apply, your name is run through a police check before the charity links you with a child in a country of your choice. You are then invited to write three or four letters a year, perhaps even send appropriate gifts to the child, who - with the help of a local charity officer - will write back.
The process is quite involved, with "safety checks" along the way. "All letters come first to the Plan UK office," explains Brobbey. They are checked for appropriate content before being sent on to the Plan office in the field, which then distributes the letters.
The scheme is organised on the basis of one child, one sponsor. Although the money you donate goes towards projects in the child's community rather than directly to the child or family, the children are definitely real and not simply representatives of their village.
Your commitment to sponsoring a child is expected to be a minimum of three years. Many sponsors support "their" child for a decade, and some even visit them in their home country. "We coordinate hundreds of sponsor visits a year," explains Brobbey.
Rosemary Wickham, 66, is a retired occupational therapist. She started sponsoring 14-year-old Yustin-Lindaly in Honduras four years ago and went to visit her in February this year.
"It was lovely to meet them all," she says. "I was shown the school that Plan had built and sat down for a meal with Yustin-Lindaly, her mum and brothers and sisters.
"I took some gifts including a football for her brothers, some crayons for her sister and a tea towel and calendar with pictures of Bristol on for her mum.
"The personal contact you get from sponsorship is really good and the visit showed what the money is being spent on."
Global villages
However, it is exactly this personal contact that makes other, larger charities shy away from such schemes. Oxfam, for example, says, "Helping individual children can also cause inequality between brothers and sisters or between friends, which can lead to further problems. Additionally, it is expensive to keep up a flow of specific information and photographs between each child and their sponsor."
Instead Oxfam has developed a wider sponsorship scheme. Through the charity's Life programme, you can sponsor a whole village.
Malambo is a Maasai village in Tanzania. Four people from Malambo have been chosen to represent the village in all Oxfam's promotional material. Emma Walsh manages the scheme: "People want to follow the progress over the years and that's the main attraction. We have signed 2,000 sponsors and ask for a commitment of seven to 10 years."
Sponsorship money goes into a dedicated fund for the village and its surrounding area - about 22,000 people.
"We're trying to boost their income generation through grants and loans to start up small businesses: for example, making beadwork crafts."
The charity even commissioned local women to make bead bracelets for the sponsor kits sent to UK donors. "The result is women can pay for education and housing." Funds also go towards training teachers and ensuring water and food supplies.
Under the carpet
At the other end of the scale from Oxfam and Plan is Project Mala. This small charity was founded 20 years ago to give child knotted-carpet workers in Uttar Pradesh, India, an education. The charity has 200 sponsors and supports 1,000 children in six schools.
"They get breakfast, a midday meal, health checks and an education for about £5-£6 a month," explains Joan Worth, the charity's only salaried staff member.
Project Mala depends almost entirely on sponsors. "It's good because once you've got a sponsor they stick with you," she says.
Unlike Plan, the charity doesn't allow sponsors to write or to visit. "Not every child is sponsored so it could create a rift, and, anyway, everything is in Hindi. Sponsors get a report on the child every term - it's emailed directly from the school in India."
Worth thinks that these reports help explain the popularity of sponsorship schemes as a way of giving to charity. "People like to know more," she explains.
And then there is the fact that the financial commitment the schemes involve is such a small one. "It's £9 a month," Worth says, of the Project Mala scheme. "It's nothing really."
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